03/31/2017

The SamsungGalaxy S8 is the nicest phone I’ve ever held. It’s a beautiful combination of glass, metal, and an absolutely massive screen in a body that’s much smaller than you might expect.

And that might not be enough to make it stand out anymore.

There are two versions of the S8:

Standard Galaxy S8 with a 5.8-inch screen

S8 Plus with a larger 6.2-inch screen.

Both are available for preorder on March 30th and will be shipping in the US on April 21st. Pricing, as always with Samsung, is up to the carriers — but you can expect them to command a premium price. The early word is that it will start at $720.

Here's the official introduction video uploaded on YouTube on March 29, 2017:

Here’s everything we learned about these two phones after using them for an hour or two last week.

GALAXY S8 HARDWARE

Holding the S8, I’m struck by the fact that nothing about it feels especially surprising, and not just because damn near everything about it has been leaking for the past few months. The boldest feature is every phone’s more important feature: the screen. On the S8, it extends up and down to cover nearly the entire front of the phone. It also curves around the left and right, something Samsung is calling the “infinity display,” which gives it the look of not having any bezels at all. And speaking of curves, the four corners of the screen are also slightly curved instead of squared-off, which adds some elegance and perhaps some screen durability.

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The S8 and S8 Plus fulfill Samsung’s promise of fitting a big screen in a smaller body, and so they’re quite a bit more usable than other large-screened phones. I didn’t experience some of the accidental touch issues that I still get with the Galaxy S7 Edge. But I also only had about an hour with the phone, so it’s possible that it could still be an issue.

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More than anything else, the S8 is nice. It may seem like table stakes in 2017, but these phones are incredibly well-designed. There are no seams, only the barest of camera bumps, and everything seems milled down to sub-millimeter tolerances. They feel inevitable in a way that almost becomes boring. Many of the design touches are evolutions of the S7 Edge and Note 7, but refined to their Platonic ideals.

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Extending the screen to near the bottom of the phone means that there’s no room for Samsung’s traditional hardware home button. Instead, it uses software buttons like other Android phones. It also uses some haptic feedback like Apple’s iPhones to create a virtual feeling of pressing a home button, though it only works on the very specific spot where the software home button appears. One neat feature: some Android apps hide those main Android buttons when they go full screen, but you can still firmly press the bottom of the screen to activate the home button.

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Getting rid of the physical home button also means that Samsung had to move the fingerprint sensor. It’s on the back now, right next to the camera. That’s not a very convenient place for it, honestly. It’s too high up on the phone to comfortably reach and it’s also right next to the camera module, which might mean you’l be getting fingerprints on the camera more often than you’d like.

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Speaking of fingerprints, because the S8 is nearly all glass, you’ll see them on the back a lot, but they’re not as prominent as you might expect (they’re worse on the LG G6, for example).

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Both the USB-C port and the 3.5mm headphone jack (hallelujah) are located on the bottom of the phone. You have power on one side and volume buttons on the other, underneath which you’ll find a whole new button that’s dedicated to the big new software feature on the Galaxy S8, Bixby. There’s much more on Bixby below, but for now I’ll just note that dedicating a hardware button to this software feature is a big bet on Samsung’s intelligent assistant. If Bixby ends up being not that great, I expect many people will be looking for ways to remap that extra hardware button (or decrying that it’s vestigial).

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GALAXY S8 SPECS

As you’d expect, the S8 has the best specs you can get on an Android phone. Depending on the region, you’ll either get Qualcomm’s newest (and slightly rarer) Snapdragon 835 or Samsung’s own Exynos. In both cases, Samsung is touting that they’re built on a 10nm chip, which should theoretically help with power consumption. In my brief time with it, everything was whip-fast. Hopefully it will stay that way over time — Samsung phones often don’t.

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The standard S8 has a 570ppi 5.8-inch screen, with a resolution of 2960 x 1440. The S8 Plus has the exact same resolution on its 6.2-inch screen, which works out to 529ppi. For my money, the standard S8 is the way to go. It still feels like a massive screen and the body is significantly smaller. The height of the screen is interesting, too: the aspect ratio is a super-tall 18.5:9, which adds a bunch of screen real estate to scroll through. I didn’t get to test a bunch of third-party apps, so hopefully we won’t see too much weirdness with the new aspect ratio. Even if we do, Galaxy phones are popular enough to prod developers to update their apps to support it.

Nearly 900 words in and I haven’t made an exploding phone joke (you’re welcome, Samsung). But now is the time to point out that the last time the phone maker released a phone this big and beautiful, it literally set itself on fire on a disturbingly regular basis. The company’s responses to this issue were botched and bad for some time before it pivoted, apologized, and introduced a new process for checking battery safety. Those safety checks are important, but Samsung still has to own all the exploding phone jokes and hear them at every mention of its phones for a while.

So on the S8, Samsung did not push the envelope when it comes to capacity. The S8 has a 3,000mAh battery and the S8 Plus has a larger 3,500mAh battery — the same capacity that the Note 7 had. But neither is especially large when you consider the fact that they need to power towering screens. Samsung claims it has tweaked the battery chemistry to help the batteries last longer after a year or two of use.

To make up for it, Samsung is offering the usual suite of power options: Qualcomm Quick Charge and support for both major wireless charging standards. But I still have reservations about how long the batteries will last on these phones. In fact, it may be a reason to seriously consider getting the larger S8 Plus.

GALAXY S8 CAMERAS

Another place where Samsung hasn’t really pushed the envelope is the camera. The S8 uses the exact same rear camera as the Galaxy S7, a 12-megapixel sensor with OIS. Samsung says it’s done work on the software side to improve picture quality, and in my short time with it I found it to be significantly faster than the camera on the Galaxy S7 Edge.

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It is notable that the S8 Plus doesn’t get a better camera or a dual-camera setup. Excepting screen and battery size, both phones are identical.

I suspect it’s using the “take pictures all the time in the background and just save them when you hit the shutter button” trick we’ve seen on other phones. It also borrows another trick from other Android phones: the shortcut to launch it is double-pressing the power button now (since the home button is virtual).

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The front-facing camera (aka the one you really care about) has gotten an upgrade. It’s an 8-megapixel sensor now, but more importantly it has autofocus. Switching between cameras was fast and easy, as was swiping over to get to Samsung’s kajillion photo gimmick settings. But some of those gimmicks are pretty neat, I’m especially fond of the GIF mode, though I do wish it was just automatic like you can do with Apple’s Live Photos and the Motion Stills app.

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In any case, the competition for the “best smartphone camera” is way more interesting now than it was a year ago, when just Samsung and Apple were at the top. Now, Apple and LG are sticking multiple cameras in their phones while Google’s Pixel has jumped to the top of the Android camera quality game. It’s too early to say that Samsung is resting on its photography laurels with the S8, but it is fair to say that there’s probably nothing here that will give other companies reason to worry.

GALAXY S8 SOFTWARE

That Samsung is capable of making great hardware should come as no surprise to anybody. It’s the software where we have reason to be skeptical. Running all the way back to the bad old days of TouchWiz, Samsung has a well-earned reputation for taking Android and mucking it up with bad ideas.

For the past few years, though, the common refrain has been restraint, and I’m going to repeat it again today. Samsung has done a pretty good job keeping its worst instincts in check. There are a ton of weird features to find in the dark recesses of the settings menu, but out of the box the basic look, feel, and functionality of Samsung’s Android skinning is pretty good.

And there are some genuinely great parts, too. The iris scanning that lived all-too-briefly on the Note 7 is back, if you’d like to unlock your phone that way. But the best way to unlock the phone is Samsung’s new face detect system. It takes about 20 seconds to set up and once you do, it works really well. It’s not the same, bad face unlock that was introduced in Android years ago, it’s an entirely new system Samsung made.

In my 10 minutes or so of playing with it, it didn’t fail to unlock a single time. In fact, it was so fast that we a hard time filming it. I had to point the phone away from my face and then just tilt it up to look at myself. I unfortunately forgot to print a glossy 8 x 10 of my face to test with, though, so I can’t say if maybe it’s tuned to be a little too forgiving when it tries to see if it’s you. Samsung admits the face-detect system is less secure than the other ways of unlocking, so you will still need to set up the iris or fingerprint scanners to make payments.

There is one gimmick that in theory I should be excited about but in practice I’m just not: DeX. It’s a feature where, after buying a specialized dock, you can plug your Galaxy S8 into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and get a full desktop mode. Unlike solutions we’ve seen in the past (RIP Motorola Atrix), the desktop mode here simply offers Android apps instead of a full desktop browser. It looks well-designed for what it is, offering full access to your notifications and resizable windows. But it can’t escape the fact that outside a few apps like Samsung’s own browser, Microsoft Office, and Adobe’s creative suite, Android apps are bad on big screens.

People who unironically call themselves Road Warriors like they’re IT managers in 1999 will love it. The rest of us probably won’t use it. And that’s fine.

GALAXY BIXBY PERSONAL ASSISTANT

Samsung may not have put a ton of effort in changing its hardware design language, updating its camera, or packing in a bigger battery. But it has been focused on figuring out how to make software that people actually like, and it’s all centered on a new virtual assistant called Bixby.

As I mentioned above, Bixby is launched by pressing an honest-to-god dedicated physical button. It has basically three modes:

A short-press of the button takes you to Bixby Home (you can also swipe over to it from the home screen).

Long-pressing the button turns on Bixby’s voice features.

There’s a small button on the camera app for Bixby’s augmented reality features.

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Let’s start in the middle with voice, because speaking to Bixby is the most interesting and challenging set of features here. Essentially, what Samsung is trying to do is create a new kind of virtual assistant, one that helps you use the device directly in your hands rather than ask random questions from the cloud.

I wasn’t able to test this myself, unfortunately, but Samsung did run us through a couple demos. In one, you can open the gallery app and then issue voice commands for editing a photo rather than trying to dig through the interface to find the right button. “Bixby, rotate this photo left,” and “Bixby, send this photo to Dan.” If you live that Samsung Life, you can use Bixby to send videos to your TV or turn off your smart lights, too.

The goal is that “anything you can control with touch, you can also control with voice.” It’s a laudable goal, but it’s also one I very seriously doubt Samsung can achieve. For one thing, it only works with about 10 Samsung apps at launch. Also, it can only work with apps that are written to support Bixby. Unlike Google Now on Tap, Bixby doesn’t do any screen reading to try and guess what’s on the screen. So it might be a virtual assistant, but it’s very far from an artificial intelligence.

The other big question with Bixby is how exactly is it differentiated from the Google Assistant. It seems pretty clear, but then you discover that there’s a bunch of overlap. For example, you can do things like set alarms with Bixby. There’s also Bixby Home, which so far as I can tell is a giant, random set of information cards for things like your smart light bulbs, fitness data, local news and weather, and whatever else Samsung thinks belongs in a virtual assistant home screen. It looks like every widget screen you’ve ever seen on a phone, which is to say it looks like sort of a mess that you probably won’t use very much.

Last but certainly not least are Bixby’s camera features, which are Bixby’s best features. You can launch it either directly in the camera app or from Bixby Home, and what it essentially does is turn your camera into a photo search machine. Point the Bixby camera app at anything and it will identify it and suggest web searches for it. I tried on flowers and it gave me options to buy flowers on Amazon or look at more flowers on Pinterest. It wasn’t able to precisely identify my Android Wear watch, but it did know it was a round watch and offered to let me buy a real one on Amazon.

It also works with more prosaic things. Samsung ran a demo with wine labels and book covers, both easily identified and given options to buy. Samsung says it’s working with specific partners for Bixby — including Amazon and Pinterest — but it doesn’t appear that it works with the biggest search engine of them all, Google. That’s not really a surprise.

GALAXY S8 RELEASE DATE, COLORS AND PRICE

In the US, the S8 and S8 Plus will come in black, gray, and silver. Gold and blue are options internationally.

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are available for preorder starting tomorrow, March 30th, and you should get a free Oculus headset with a controller and a set of games along with your preorder. The official release in the US is on April 21st. Unfortunately, Samsung won’t confirm pricing, leaving that to its carrier partners — again, it looks like it’ll start at around $720.

COMMENTARY: I was so impressed with the new Samsung Galaxy S8, that I pre-ordered a Galaxy S8 Plus on Thursday, March 30. T-Mobile, my wireless carrier, is running a special promotion, offering a FREE pair of Samsung VR goggles with each new phone ordered, while supply lasts. This is my fourth Samsung Galaxy phone, and I see no reason to change handsets. I hope I made the right choice.

03/28/2017

Amazon Echo, commonly referred to as “Alexa,” has become one of the most popular gadgets to debut in recent years. People the world over are embracing all of the ways that the device, first available in June 2015, can aid in managing the home and day-to-day life. While this kind of technology is often thought to appeal to only younger demographics, Boomers are finding new and innovative ways to use Echo to meet their specific needs.

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The device, by nature, is one that relies on auditory interaction instead of visual input. As we age, many people have trouble seeing the small screen offered by a phone, finding it even more difficult to use the tiny keyboard to enter text. Through the voice command interface offered by Echo, Boomers are finding features easier to use. Need to make a grocery list? Just ask aloud that Alexa add an item to your list, and she’ll compile all of your requested items so you can review them later. She’ll even send a text message to your phone or tablet with the list to help you when shopping in the store.

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One of the truly modern marvels of Echo is the ability to manage your home through the Internet of Things – those household devices that connect to the Internet. The device can be paired with several other gadgets now on the market to create a truly interconnected home management system.

Phillips offers its Hue line of light bulbs. When the bulbs are connected to the Echo, they can be controlled by simple voice command, making turning lights on and off a breeze. This function is very helpful for seniors traversing a home, letting users turn lights on before moving, providing added safety and security. Remember those times when you heard a strange noise in the house? Now the user can turn the lights on before leaving the bedroom to check it out!

The popular Nest thermostat system can be connected to Echo, allowing a user to control a home’s temperature by simply asking for it to be warmer or colder. The Nest also connects to phones and tablets, letting loved ones keep an eye on home temperature and energy usage from any location.

While any age demographic might find these abilities helpful, Boomers are especially appreciative as Echo combines the control of several devices into one easy-to-use interface that can take commands from anyone in the household, such as family members and caregivers.

The Echo’s reminder system is also very powerful when put to use for a Boomer. It can help remind users to take medications and set notifications for myriad daily tasks. These functions are especially useful for those with early-onset dementia, as the device never tires of reminding users what they need to do or of answering questions that a caregiver might find repetitive.

Retirement communities around the country are also seeing the benefits of these devices, offering them pre-installed in homes. These systems can be a huge benefit for the community, as they can sample information on power efficiency in units, check on resident safety and provide another vehicle for communication/information-sharing.

As this type of technology continues to evolve and grow, it is expected that additional interconnected products will be aimed squarely at the Boomer market. Google has entered the fray with its own in-home assistant, and several companies are developing similar devices for niche audiences, such as children and seniors. Additionally, more connected products are being developed each day. These include health management applications and devices, communication aides and, of course, new and varied entertainment options. By combining all of these functions into a device that doesn’t rely on a screen, manufacturers have found a niche for those who desire to age in place, providing control of their home by voice alone.

By embracing these advances, Boomers and seniors are finding ways to remain in their homes longer. Professionals marketing and selling to these demographics would do well to fully understand these products. They should definitely make them a part of their offerings going forward, whether that be interconnected applications or pre-installed, in home packages.

COMMENTARY:

Amazon Echo Product Lineup

Amazon Echo voice speaker device lineup (Click Image to Enlarge)

Amazon Echo

The Echo is the tall black cylinder (far right in above pic) that stated it all - a Bluetooth speaker equipped with far-field, always-on microphones and internet-connected smarts. The $179.99 device can control smart home products, play music from your phone, Amazon Prime, and Spotify, and even order products off Amazon just by listening to your voice.

With the Alexa app, you can customize the virtual assistant to your liking, with hundreds of Alexa Skills for everything from delivering more accurate weather forecasts to making fart sounds.

Amazon Eco Dot

Take the Echo, slice off the top, and you've got the Echo Dot (far right next to the taller Amazon Echo in the above pic). The Dot ditches the high-quality built-in speaker to cut down on cost, while still giving you all of Alexa's smarts. A smaller built-in speaker does let you talk to Alexa, but its not good enough for straming music. Instad, you can connect the Dot to speakers you already own via Bluetooth or an audio-out jack.

The Dot sells for $49, and Amazon offers a variety of bundles that package it with Bose speakers or other smart home products.

Amazon Tap

The Amazon Tap (far left in the above pic) takes the Echo's core features and packs them into a portable Bluetooth speaker. Since it's battery-powered, the Tap isn't always listening like the Echo or Echo Dot. Instead, you have to press a mic button to speak to Alexa.

Even though it's portable, the Tap requires a WiFi connection to use Alexa (there's no LTE option), so if you're out and about, you'll need to use your smartphone as a mobile hotspot. You can pre-order the Tap for $129.99, and like the Echo Dot, it ships March 31.

Amazon Fire TV

The Fire TV version (right of the Amazon Tap in the above pic) of Alexa doesn't have all the same features as Alexa on the Echo, but it can still control smart home products and take advantage of Alexa Skills.

The main difference is the way you interact with Alexa. You need to have your TV on and speak to Alexa through the Fire TV Remote. There's no always-on listening mode, but that might be a positive if you have privacy concerns.

Amazon Echo Units Sold

Amazon does not report how many Amazon Echo smart speaker devices they have sold since 2014 when the device was launched. Several IoT industry experts have estimated how many smart speakers have been sold.

According to the 2017 Voice Report from VoiceLabs, Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers will sell more than 24 million units combined through the end of 2017.

The report, which combines data from multiple sources, including CIRP, KPCB and InfoScout, shows that a total of 24.5 million devices will be sold by Google and Amazon in 2017.

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The report also shows that the total footprint of voice-first devices will hit 33 million units by the end of the year after expanding by 24.5 million units, which means there are only a total of 8.5 million units of Amazon Echo and Google Home combined.

That’s a little hard to believe, and it conflicts with information from Morgan Stanley, which showed that there were more than 11 million Amazon Echo devices sold between mid-2015 and December 1, 2016.

Both reports can’t be true, obviously, but we have to remember that both of them are estimates rather than actuals. There’s no way to get the actual numbers because only Amazon knows what those are – and they’re being very tight-lipped about it, other than the fact that Amazon Echo devices sold 9 times more during Cyber Week 2016 than the year before.

We know that Amazon sold at least 1 million Amazon Echo devices during the 2015 holiday season, possibly more. 9 times that means the company sold at least 9 million units at the end of 2016. That information comes directly from Amazon, so it has to be accurate.

As it stands, we believe that Morgan Stanley’s numbers are closer to being correct. What’s more, the investment bank even said that the estimate of 11 million is “likely very low.”

If that’s the case, then there are already between 11 million and 15 million Amazon Echo and its variants out there. But the VoiceLabs estimate is about 9 million in total – Amazon Echo and Google Home combined. That’s why we believe the number is way off.

However, what’s interesting is that the voice-first market is estimated to grow nearly four times over the course of 2017. According to their sources, that works out to 33 million devices by the end of this year.

Now, if we use the data from Morgan Stanley and the growth estimate from VoiceLabs’ sources, something interesting emerges: total voice-first device units will grow to at least 45 to 50 million devices by the end of 2017.

Amazon Echo will continue to dominate that market, at least through 2017, and Google Home and other smart speaker makers who have released or are releasing similar products this year will each get a share of market.

For Amazon, that’s great news because theirs is the only device that will offer direct voice shopping from Amazon’s extensive catalog of items.

Assuming that the figures are anywhere near accurate, we could see a further spurt in Amazon’s retail revenues in North America. The unit is already hitting close to $20 billion in revenues – $18.87 billion reported in the last quarter, to be exact. That figure should be well over $20 billion for the holiday quarter, which is being reported on February 2, 2017.

If they see a further spurt in growth based on voice shopping sales through Amazon Echo devices, 2017 could be the year that Amazon’s North America retail division alone hits the $100 billion a year mark.

As for Google Home, even strong sales in 2017 won’t make a big impact on their revenues, but it will give them a solid presence in the voice-based consumer electronics market.

And who knows, Google may well introduce voice advertising in future to monetize their voice search channel, with users coming in from Google Assistant on Google Home, Google Pixel smartphones and future devices.

01/06/2017

2016 was a banner year for acquisitions of companies involved in robotics and automation: 50 sold; 11 for amounts over $500 million; five were over a billion. 30 of the 50 companies disclosed transaction amounts which totaled up to a colossal $18.867 billion!

Chinese money was involved in over 47% of those acquisitions. Kuka by Midea, Dematic by Kion, KraussMaffei by ChemChina, Paslin by Wenfang, Gimatic by Agic Capital, Ecoclean by SBS Group to name the top ones.

Top 10 Robotics Acquisitions in 2016

KUGA AG - Acquired by Midea Group - $5.110 Billion - In a complex stock play over the course of many months, Chinese consumer products manufacturer Midea Group acquired over 94% of the outstanding and privately held shares of KUKA AG, a Germany-based robot manufacturers and one of the Big Four of international robot makers. The approval process involved negotiations with the German and US governments, the selling off of KUKA Aero (which is involved in sensitive aerospace technologies) to AIT (see below), and an agreement regarding jobs and plants in Germany which will be protected until the end of 2023. Also Midea agreed not to pursue a domination agreement or de-listing of KUKA’s shares.

DEMATIC - Acquired by Kion Group - $2.1 Billion - The Kion Group, with funding from their Chinese partner, acquired Dematic Corp. for $2.1 billion. Kion’s biggest single shareholder is Chinese diesel-engine maker Weichai Power with a 38.3% stake. Kion has been on a tear acquiring all sorts of companies in the logistics sphere: Egemin, Linde, Retrotech and now Dematic.

INTELLIGRATED - Acquired by Honeywell - $1.5 billion - Honeywell's material handling solutions are somewhat old school, hence their need to strategically acquire newer technology. Intelligrated has been a successful integrator of mobile and stationary robotic solutions and systems for 20+ years for manufacturing, warehousing and distribution material handling and automated storage and retrieval. In recent years the company has posted double-digit year-over-year growth. Intelligrated brings a large IP portfolio of warehouse automation, order fulfillment and software solutions and has an extensive presence in North American e-commerce and the retail, and food and beverage markets.

INVENSENSE - Acquired by TDK Corporation - $1.3 billion - TDK Corporation acquired InvenSense, Inc. for $1.3 billion. InvenSense provides motion sensors, and is known for its six- and nine-axis motion sensors, which are used in some advanced consumer products and applications. Recently it has added inertial, environmental, microphone, and ultrasonic sensors to its product line.

KRAUSSMAFFEI AUTOMATION - Acquired by ChemChina - $1 billion - ChemChina and a group of other investors including Chinese state funds, acquired Germany’s KraussMaffei Automation, an industrial robot integrator and plastics, carbon fiber, and rubber processor, for $1 billion.

ARCAM AB - Acquired by GE - $800 million - Arcam AB, based in Mölndal, Sweden, was acquired by GE. Arcam invented an electron beam melting machine for metal-based additive manufacturing, and also produces advanced metal powders. Its customers are in the aerospace and healthcare industries. Arcam generated $68 million in revenues in 2015 with approximately 285 employees.

E2V - Acquired by Teledyne Technologies - $780 million - Teledyne Technologies, which specializes in deepwater gas and oil exploration and production, oceanographic research, air and water quality environmental monitoring, electronics design and development, factory automation and medical imaging, acquired British imaging sensor maker E2V Technologies in an all cash $780 million transaction. E2V's imaging devices, machine vision cameras for sensitive, high speed inspection processes, industrial processing systems, and other sensors, enable a range of industrial robotic and automation systems to work more efficiently and for space science and astronomy applications.

OTTO MOTORS - Acquired by Uber - $680 million - Otto Motors, a San Francisco startup developing self-driving truck system kits, was acquired by Uber for $680 million. The deal was worth about 0.9% of Uber. Also part of the deal, Otto gets 20% of any trucking business profits they end up creating. Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer and one of Otto’s founders, will take charge of Uber’s self-driving car operations as well as continuing to run Otto’s trucking business.

CRUISE AUTOMATION - Acquired by General Motors - $600 million - General Motors acquired Cruise Automation, a startup that was developing autopilot systems for existing cars, for an undisclosed sum but, according to Fortune magazine, a figure "north of $1 billion." This figure was later modified to $600 million. GM has stated their goal of creating the industry’s biggest driverless-vehicle fleet which is why GM paid such a steep purchase price for Cruise, invested $500 million into Lyft, and another $25 million to acquire the employees and technology left over from Sidecar, a ride-sharing service that shut down last December. Certainly these acquisitions are both a talent and a technology grab to help GM facilitate their fleet-vehicle goal.

There were also several robotics acquisitions where financial information was not disclosed.

Top 10 Robotics Acquisitions Where Financial Information Was Not Disclosed

AERIAL MOB - Acquired by 5D Robotics - Price Not Disclosed - 5D Robotics, a San Diego area integrator of unmanned and mobile robotics using ultra-wide band (5D) communications, acquired Aerial MOB, a drone aerial cinematography startup. The acquisition has led to the formation of the 5D Aerial division which will provide 3D mapping, photogrammetry, thermal and multi-spectral imagery data to vertical markets including oil and gas, utilities and construction.

ASCENDING TECHNOLOGIES - Acquired by Intel - Price Not Disclosed - Ascending Technologies, a German provider of autopilot systems, unmanned aircraft systems and multi-rotor technology for professional, civil and research applications, was acquired by Intel. At CES, Intel showed off Ascending's technology in a colorful video of 100 drones performing a light show in time with an orchestra playing a Beethoven Symphony. Intel gains expertise and technology (and 75 new employees) to accelerate the deployment of Intel RealSense technology into the fast growing drone market segment.

BLUEFIN ROBOTICS - Acquired by General Dynamics - Price Not Disclosed - Bluefin Robotics was acquired by the Mission Systems unit of General Dynamics. Bluefin is a Massachusetts-based developer of autonomous undersea robots used for mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance applications for the DoD.

GATEWING (A TRIMBLE SUBSIDIARY) - Acquired by Delair-Tech - Price Not Disclosed - Delair-Tech, a French UAS manufacturer, acquired Gatewing from Trimble and also signed a strategic alliance with both Trimble and Microdrones, a German UAS maker, to be Trimbles preferred providers for UAS solutions. 100+ Gatewing employees are involved in the transaction.

GROHMANN ENGINEERING - Acquired by Tesla - Price Not Disclosed - Tesla acquired Germany’s Grohmann Engineering, an integrator of factory systems technology including robotics. Tesla will turn Grohmann into a new subdivision dedicated to helping Tesla increase the automation and effectiveness of its manufacturing process. Although no disclosure was made regarding how or how much was paid, Grohmann’s 2015 revenue was $125 million and they employ around 800 people in facilities in Germany, the US and China.

HOCOMO - Acquired by DIH International - Price Not Disclosed - Hocomo, a Swiss provider of robotic and sensor-based rehabilitation solutions, merged with Chinese DIH International to provide comprehensive rehab solutions. DIH International is a corporate holding group from Hong Kong with offices in China, Korea, the Netherlands and the US.

JAYBRIDGE ROBOTICS - Acquired by Toyota - Price Not Disclosed - In a move similar to the 2015 deal where Uber hired almost the complete staff of CMU's NREC, Toyota hired the entire 16-member software engineering staff of Jaybridge Robotics, the company providing software automation of industrial vehicles across a range of industrial applications including agriculture, mining, marine, and rail. Jaybridge-engineered autonomous systems have logged thousands of hours in the hands of end-users. Jaybridge Robotics, Inc. remains an independent company and will continue to provide support for existing clients.

A push by some of the world’s largest corporations to find new avenues to expand in the face of anemic or problematic economic growth led to major acquisitions in areas adjacent to their core business.

Chris Ventresca, global co-head of M&A at JPMorgan Chase & Co said.

“Companies are reinventing themselves, looking at their business in a new way with regards to how can they be a disrupter, and how they can prevent being disrupted – and this opens up deal flow”

Enrico Krog Iversen, who sold Danish Universal Robots to American Teradyne in 2015, when asked why his company didn't go public, said:

"Exiting to a larger company will often make sense not only for financial reasons, but also for people reasons – opening up for new/more career opportunities. You will become part of something bigger and can instantly get access to additional resources. Naturally there are also some political considerations if you choose this path. You will probably get access to a very strong board who can help you develop the company faster.

An IPO may bring more money on paper, but it is a very restricted way to exit and it is also very bureaucratic to run a listed company. In our case, I preferred to have a good sum of money in the bank instead of a lot of money on paper. Also I did not personally fancy all the bureaucracy and politics that goes with being CEO of a listed company."

10/10/2016

Snap, Inc. is reportedly preparing an IPO that will value the company formerly known as Snapchat at around $25 billion.

The social darling is shooting for a March offering, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. A company representative declined to comment on the report, on Thursday.

Standing in stark contrast to struggling social networks like Twitter, Snapchat is presently making more money than it can count.

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Indeed, despite direct competition from Facebook and other tech giants, the company is positioned for “explosive” growth in ad revenue over the next few years, according to a recent forecast from eMarketer.

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The research predicts that the playful messaging app will generate $366.69 million in ad revenues this year.

That figure is expected to jump to $935.46 million, next year.

Cathy Boyle, principal analyst at eMarketer, recently said Snapchat’s bright outlook has everything to do with its young user base. Boyl notes in a report.

“Advertisers are attracted to Snapchat for its broad reach among young Millennials and those in Generation Z, which are valuable demographic groups for many businesses.”

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To its credit, Snapchat has also tailored its ad strategy specifically for this easy-to-alienate demographic.

According to Boyle.

“To engage those often hard-to-reach consumers, Snapchat has expanded its advertising portfolio over the past year to include a wider array of video ads and more sponsored geo-filters and sponsored lenses.”

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Stateside, Snapchat’s Discover feature generates 43% of ad revenue, which is its largest single share, according to eMarketer.

Next year, however, the research firm expects Stories to overtakes Discover as the dominant ad revenue source -- by generating 37.8% of the company’s domestic ad revenue.

Having launched its ad platform in mid-2015, Snapchat still only captures 2.3% of social-networking dollars, eMarketer estimates. That’s despite the fact that it now commands 36% of the market in terms of domestic users.

Approaching its would-be IPO, Snapchat continues to experiment with new categories.

Bounding into hardware and physical fashion, the company recently unveiledSpectacles -- stylish video-recording sunglasses that are expected to retail for $130.

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Set to hit shelves later this fall, the shades can record 10-second video snippets, which are designed to approximate one’s natural field of vision. That's thanks to a 115-degree lens, which records circular video. If Spectacles are well received, Snapchat would become the first company to convince consumers to wear connected gadgets on their face.

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Google notoriously spent millions of dollars in development and marketing dollars, before giving up on its Glass initiative. Yet Snapchat -- which just rebranded itself as Snap, Inc. -- seems to have learned a few things from Google's failure.

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Spectacles’ $130 price tag is far more reasonable than the $1,500 that Google tried to charge people for Glass. Snapchat’s glasses are also being sold as a single-purpose device, which is historically much easier to market.

like Google, Snapchat currently enjoys a strong bond with young consumers -- the ideal demographic for starting trends and popularizing products.

Although bold, Snapchat’s move into hardware should not come as a complete surprise to industry watchers. The social darling recently joined the industry group that runs the Bluetooth wireless standard, which followed several hires and smallish acquisitions in the arena of consumer electronics.

COMMENTARY: I have to confess that I have not followed or even taken the time to use and evaluate Snapchat because I am most definitely not in their demographics. The idea of posting photos that dematerialize is something that just does not interest me. I ask the question: Why do I need this? I could not bring myself to come to a practical answer. On the other hand, I wasn't in Facebook's demographics either, but now everybody seems to be using the social giant site to connect and engage with users throughout the world.

Now comes the news that Snapchat is coming out with Spectacles, their first foray into cnsumer electronics. Didn't Snapchat's founders realize how intrusive taking someone else's picture without their permission can be? Google found this out when they introduced Google Glass, their augmented reality glasses. The cost for a pair of Google Glass was also prohibitively expensive. Maybe Snapchat will have better luck. Millennials are pretty impulsive, and love trying the latest in consumer electronics devices. They make the lions share of early adopters. The price is just right for Millennials, who are strapped for cash and carry a lot of debt, mostly from student loans. The glasses look "retro cool," but they don't rock my world from a designer standpoint. On the other hand, Spectacles differentiate the company from Instagram and Twitter's Vine and Periscope which also allow users to exchange video content via mobile devices. However, it still comes down to a sustainable business model, and Snapchat only began running ads in mid-2015. In my opinion, this is not a very long time to prove the sustainability of their business model.

The big news of the day is that Snapchat is planning a $25 billion IPO. I smell another Twitter IPO in the making. A startup that just began making money from ads in md-2015 is not reliable proof of a sustainable business model. Snapchat relies exclusively on Millennials, and that market although large, and soon to be the largest demographic segment in the US, is not broad or mainstream like Twitter or Facebook. Another question: How profitable is Snapchat? If they are anything like Twitter at this stage of their development, they are probably not profitable. Both Twitter and LinkedIn (recently acquired by Microsoft) were never profitable, so I would be very cautious about investing in a startup with such a narrow demographic focus.

I am dying to review Snapchat's S-1 filing. It should help answer a lot of investor concerns, and validate my own suspicions and doubts.

10/06/2016

Happy Twitter-versary (for the nth time around this time), Jack Dorsey. Things haven’t been going well, it seems, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel — Twitter may be acquired by someone somewhere in the tech (or entertainment) industry, perhaps.

To be perfectly fair, the company Dorsey inherited from his predecessor(s), including an array of former product leads as well as CEO Dick Costolo, wasn’t in that great of shape to begin. But Dorsey’s return was heralded as a return to form for Twitter, in the hope that he might come in and shake things up to the point that the company would finally turn around and make Wall Street Happy.

So in the last month or so, a lot has been made as to whether the company should remain independent or whether it makes sense as part of a larger empire that can devote more resources into growing it. There are natural arguments for each — Twitter is one of the go-to sources for news (and also sports!), but a company like Salesforce could pump additional life into it to get that user base growing more broadly. And perhaps the company once again needs new fresh blood.

And let’s look at the user base the company reported last quarter, which has been the main sticking point for Wall Street and Twitter:

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So, barely any growth whatsoever (and even a small drop-off at one point). Hmm. What about revenue growth? Under the leadership of Adam Bain this wasn’t a huge problem for a while, though everything still stems back to user growth.

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And Twitter’s still losing money:

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One last quick one, which isn’t exactly a chart — how much it’s paying for stock-based compensation:

So, you may be sensing a little bit of a trend: a big shift to live video, some attempts to combat harassment and other problems (though it hasn’t worked), and of course lackluster results under Dorsey.

It’s been a tough run for Dorsey, which may eventually be capped off with a final sale to a company. Anything can change at the last minute, of course, but for the time being it seems like Twitter needs to right itself — whether that’s through increasingly drastic internal changes or bringing in new leadership under new ownership to do just that. And there’s always next year!

Twitter’s third-quarter earnings come out later this month, and it’s kind of hard to believe that this may be the final time we see the guts of the company for the foreseeable future. It may end with a final sign-off like LinkedIn:

“In light of the pending merger, LinkedIn will not be updating its outlook for fiscal 2016 and will not be hosting a conference call for its second quarter 2016 business results.”

COMMENTARY: If you've followed my blog posts about Jack Dorsey and Twitter's performance, you know that I have not been very complimentary towards Jack Dorsey, and have been just as critical about Twitter's performance. Not to be forgotten is the number of key staffers who have chosen to leave the company since Dorsey took over as CEO. In addition to the exits, revenues have failed to meet investor expectations, with the stock price dropping to near lows, and Monthly Active Users (MAU's) stalling just over 300 million users since he took over the helm.

Although Twitter has aggressively moved towards more video content (Vine and Periscope), including live sporting event streams, at its face, the overall Twitter experience has remained about the same. The homepage is still an endless torrent of tweets, without any organization or personalization. It is very time consuming to review this mountainous torrent of tweets. The result is that users are missing out on news and information that is important to them.

Twitter now allows users to attach images and videos to their tweets without affecting the 140 character limit. This is a good thing, but only a superficial improvement that a lot of users don't even notice. This is not enough to improve the overall user experience and serve as an inducement to increase user engagement and attract new users.

Twitter requires radical changes not just superficial improvements. It's a huge product design problem that must be resolved. You literally need to go back to square one and introduce an entirely new Twitter with a user interface (UI) that is unrecognizable from what you see today, and that is simple, user-friendly and intuitive. Here are a few changes that I think are greatly needed.

To combat the avalanche of tweet traffic, users should be required to classify their tweets by type (example: politics, social media, big data, legal, sports, games, fashion, personal, etc.). Users should be able to select a type before they can post it. I follow political tweets a lot, so I should be able to view all political tweets and see what's trending within that type (example: #VPdebate, #presidentialdebate, #potus, #trump, #clinton, etc.).

Live streaming event tweets should be separate from other tweets so that they clearly stand out. They should also be classified by type, and users should be able to see which live streaming events are trending (example: #presdentialdebate, #sundaynightfootball, #spaceXlaunch, #liveearthconcert, etc.).

An idea that I have proposed before includes classified ads. Twitter could be a great classified ad site, but classified ads are lost in the torrent of tweets. Classified ads would appear separate from regular news and information tweets, and would be classified by type (example: rentals, autos, household, garage sales, personals, etc.). Classified ads would be a great way for Twitter to generate additional revenues that could rival those of Craigslist. I don't know why this hasn't been done before. If I don't want to see ads within my tweet stream, I should be offered the option of paying a small fee for that privelege. Another potential revenue stream.

There you have it. If you have other ideas, don't hesitate to post them in the comment section.

Rothenberg Ventures, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, may be on the brink of implosion, say several sources close to the firm.

We reported yesterday that several high-level employees had parted ways with Rothenberg, including:

Tom Leep, Director of Finance (father of Tommy Lepp)

Tommy Leep, Partner, Head of San Francisco Office (left July 2016)

Chief Revenue Officer (left August 17, 2016)

Chief Financial Officer(left in June 2016)

James Taylor, General Manager (left August 2016)

Fran Hauser, Partner (left July 2016; Hauser was a former president of digital at Time Inc. Hauser was brought in with some fanfare as a venture partner in May 2014. Yesterday, she updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect that she left Rothenberg in July.

Messages to Rothenberg have not been returned. According to one source, Rothenberg Ventures founder Mike Rothenberg has told those remaining that “very few people will be left.” In what appears to be a related development, the firm’s site has also been down since last night.

Why the mass exodus? According to one source, Rothenberg Ventures is under investigation by the SEC after a lower-level employee alerted the agency to what this person reported as wire fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. This same source says the employee was subsequently fired and is now suing the firm for retaliation.

All SEC investigations are conducted privately. An investigation does not mean that the agency will file a case in federal court or bring an administrative action.

Either way, a much thornier issue for Rothenberg Ventures, say numerous former employees, is founder Rothenberg himself, who has sometimes seemed to live more like a billionaire than the manager of a modest venture fund — spending lavishly to attract moneyed individuals as investors and, over time, growing increasingly focused on becoming as famous as some of them.

Making a millionaire

Rothenberg, an Austin native who says he comes from humble means — “no one in my family has any money,” he once told us — was smart enough to nab an undergraduate, then graduate degree, from Stanford, then bootstrap a real estate fund with his brother before moving on to Harvard to secure an MBA.

Soon afterward, inspired by business leaders he had met while at Stanford, Rothenberg planted himself in San Francisco and got down to the business of trying to shake up the stodgy venture industry. Step one involved raising a $5 million fund from “friends, family, and former roommates,” as reported in a Bloomberg story about Rothenberg last year.

His timing was ideal as these things go. In 2012, the market was in the middle of a three-year upswing, following the financial crisis of late 2008. A number of newer faces was also beginning to gain prominence in the venture industry, along with the trust of so-called limited partners — the individuals and institutions that fund venture firms.

Rothenberg is also a natural salesperson, and as such, quickly evolved his pitch for Rothenberg from yet another seed-stage fund to a thought-leading outfit willing to make big bets on virtual reality before most people in Silicon Valley saw it as a major opportunity.

Indeed, by late 2014, Rothenberg Ventures — whose more garden-variety bets include the clothing company Chubbies and the floral delivery startup BloomThat — announced it was launching a virtual reality startup accelerator, River, and that it planned to provide $100,000 in seed funding to virtual reality companies expressly. Among its bets was Fove, which makes an eye-tracking head-mounted display and went on to raise an $11 million Series A round earlier this year.

But employees say that as the firm grew, so too did Rothenberg’s spending, and not merely on their paychecks.

Among the expensive ways that Rothenberg found to market the firm to prospective limited partners, he hired race-car driver Collete Davis and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more to maintain and transport her race car to events. Another $200,000 reportedly went toward a suite at the Super Bowl that was meant to woo investors.

Rothenberg Ventures — which counts many people in tech and finance as backers, including Jeff Seibert, a former head of product at Twitter, and Michael Cronin, founder of the private equity firm Weston Presidio — also inserted itself increasingly into celebrity circles, say employees, including buying tickets to the Golden Globes, co-sponsoring actor Chase Crawford’s 30th birthday party in West Hollywood, and spending unsparingly to executive produce a video for Coldplay.

Says one source, “Mike wants to be famous.”

They say he began to live as if he were, too, with many other examples of seemingly out-of-control spending. Among them, says one source, Rothenberg had hired up to three executive assistants at one point. He also employed a personal assistant for himself and a private driver. Further, employees say he refused to fly coach and instead maintained a $2,000-per-month membership with the young, subscription-only airline service Surf Air.

They also say Rothenberg began to spend an inordinate amount of time managing his reputation, as questions began to surface around how he afforded it all. When Bloomberg last year questioned the firm’s ability to finance itself, Rothenberg sent two employees to SFO, purchasing them airline tickets so they could head to airport newsstands and buy copies of the issue in hopes that it wouldn’t be as widely read.

All the while, Rothenberg was hiring, employing up to 60 people across Rothenberg Ventures at one point. For a firm that manages hundreds of millions of dollars, that wouldn’t be a startling amount of overhead. But Rothenberg Ventures has raised $47 million across four funds dating back to 2013, according to SEC filings. Given that firms typically collect 2 percent of what they raise in management fees, that would leave just $940,000 for Rothenberg’s entire operation. In fact, most funds of a similar size are run by two or three people.

Next steps

What happens now is anyone’s guess, including whether Rothenberg will be forced to sell any stakes in the company’s 100-plus portfolio companies to a secondaries specialist. When we asked a founder of a top secondaries shop for more information today, the executive declined to provide any information, saying only that Rothenberg Ventures “has been super nice to me.”

Certainly, while employees paint a picture of an overly ambitious founder who paid too little attention to his firm’s finances, many outsiders like Rothenberg and benefited richly from Rothenberg Ventures’ generosity.

Among its most popular events is an annual Founders Field Day at AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play. In April of last year, the outlet Recode likened it to a scene lifted from “Silicon Valley” after the HBO show opened its second season, two weeks earlier, with a scene at the baseball park.

Employees say Rothenberg loved it.

COMMENTARY: I just love it when controversy surrounds a venture capital firm, especially when it involves its founder, and that founder goes crazy spending investor capital. With so many key members of the managment team bailing out, some with just a few months on the job, it is clearly time to "abandon ship." Still no response from Mike Rothenberg. The SEC investigation must be going full speed ahead. There's probably a lot more going on besides the lavish spending. The shutdown of the website is another clear signal that this VC firm is not taking on any new startups. The high flying and party days are over for Rothenberg Ventures.

At the end of 2015, Rothenberg Ventures was the VC leader in the number of investments made in the AR/VR space with a total of 32 startups in which it had invested. These ventures are very early stage, so it remains to beseen whether any of them will pan out or ever reach unicorn status.

CB Insights Infographic of Leading VC firms investing the the AR-VR Space between 2011 and 2015 (Click Image To Enlarge)

It appears the Mike Rothenberg has a preference for founders who graduated from Stanford and Harvard. Mike attended both schools. An intriguing coincidence or preference on the part of Mike.

To be continued.

Courtesy of an article dated August 18, 2016 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated January 6, 2013 appearing in TechCrunch and an article datd January 28, 2016 appearing in CBInsights

07/31/2016

It's 2:00 am in the dark morning hours of June 28th, Mark Zuckerberg woke up and got on a plane. He was traveling to an aviation testing facility in Yuma, AZ, where a small Facebook team had been working on a secret project. Their mission: to design, build, and launch a high-altitude solar-powered plane, in the hopes that one day a fleet of the aircraft would deliver internet access around the world.

Zuckerberg arrived at the Yuma Proving Ground before dawn. Zuckerberg said in an interview with The Verge.

“A lot of the team was really nervous about me coming.”

A core group of roughly two dozen people work on the drone, named Aquila (uh-KEY-luh), in locations from Southern California to the United Kingdom. For months, they had been working in rotations in Yuma, a small desert city in southwestern Arizona known primarily for its brutal summer temperatures.

On this day, Aquila would have its first functional test flight: the goal consisted of taking off safely, stabilizing in the air, and flying for at least 30 minutes before landing. Zuckerberg says.

“I just felt this is such an important milestone for the company, and for connecting the world, that I have to be there.”

For Facebook, Aquila is more than a proof of concept. It’s a linchpin of the company’s plan to bring the internet to all 7 billion people on Earth, regardless of their income or where they live. Doing so will lift millions of people out of poverty, Zuckerberg says, improving education and health globally along the way. But it will also enable the next generation of Facebook’s services in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and more. This next era of tech will require higher bandwidth and more reliable connections than we have today, and drones can help deliver both. The road to a VR version of Facebook begins where Aquila leaves the runway.

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As the Sun rose over the desert, a crane lifted Aquila onto the dolly structure that would propel it into the sky. The drone has a tremendous wingspan: 141 feet, compared to a Boeing 737’s 113 feet. And yet Facebook engineered Aquila to be as light as possible to permit ultra-long flights. Built with carbon fiber, the latest iteration of the drone weighs around 900 pounds — about half as much as a Smart car.

A remote control operator activated the dolly, and Aquila began rumbling down the runway. The plane is attached to the dolly with four straps. When it reached sufficient speed, pyrotechnic cable cutters known as “squibs” cut through the straps, and Aquila lifted into the air, where it floated up its test altitude of 2,150 feet and stabilized. On the ground, Facebook’s employees were elated; some wiped away tears. Zuckerberg said.

“It was this incredibly emotional moment for everyone on the team who’s poured their lives into this for two years.”

Watching from below, Zuckerberg was struck by Aquila’s deliberate, unhurried pace. Zuckerberg said two weeks later, at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.

“It flies really slowly. Most times when people are designing planes, they’re designing them to get people or things from place to place, so there’s no real advantage to moving slowly. But if your goal is to stay in the air for a long period of time, then you want to use as little energy as possible — which means going as slowly as you physically can, while not falling out of the air.”

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FLIGHT MANUAL

Okay, but why a plane? There are lots of ways to bring the internet to people that don’t involve designing your own drone.

There are satellites, which are good at delivering internet access to wide geographical areas. But they’re only effective in areas with low population density — too many users can gobble up the bandwidth in a hurry.

There are cellular towers, which excel at connecting dense urban populations. But building enough cellular towers to cover the entire Earth is considered too expensive and impractical, even for Facebook.

In 2014, Zuckerberg wrote a paper analyzing various methods of internet delivery. High-altitude drones, he said, could serve a huge audience of people who live in medium-sized cities or on the outskirts of urban areas. They fly closer to the ground than satellites, meaning their signals are stronger and more useful to larger populations. And they fly above regulated airspace, making them easier to deploy.

If Facebook could build a drone that gathered most of its power from the Sun, Zuckerberg reasoned, it could fly for 90 days. A laser communications system could deliver high-speed internet to base stations on the ground, connecting everyone within 50 kilometers. The planes would be easier to maneuver than, say, balloons — a method embraced by Google, which has embarked on its own global connectivity crusade with Project Loon. (Last year Google challenged Facebook more directly with Project Titan, a solar-powered internet delivery drone of its own.) If the drones could be built cheaply enough, they would one day dot the skies, and become a critical piece of the global internet infrastructure.

And so 26 months ago, Zuckerberg set an ambitious goal: to release a functional version of Aquila in just a couple years. He personally recruited experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT’s Media Lab, among other places, to bring his vision to life.

As part of the project, Facebook spent nearly $20 million to acquire the team behind Ascenta, an aviation consultancy led by Andy Cox. Cox is a mechanical engineer who previously worked on a team that kept a solar-powered drone in the sky for two weeks — still a world record. After Facebook acquired his consultancy, Cox became Zuckerberg’s top lieutenant on the Aquila project. The team works out of a warehouse in Bridgewater, 150 miles west of London.

As recounted in Wired earlier this year, building a working model of Aquila put the team in daily battle with the laws of physics. Early on, it attempted to launch Aquila with a hot-air balloon. A planned test flight date of October 2015 was pushed back, and then pushed back again. Attempts to fly a 27-foot scale model of Aquila were hampered by El Niño storms.

But by June 28th of this year, the team had overcome those hurdles. At cruise altitude, Aquila was using just 2,000 watts of energy — the equivalent output of five strong cyclists, Zuckerberg says. The company hoped Aquila would successfully remain aloft for half an hour. But it was so stable that they kept it in the air for 90 minutes before landing it safely.

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THE HARD PART

In it's first flight, Aquila exceeded engineers’ expectations for its energy efficiency. More test flights are planned, aimed at flying Aquila “faster, higher, and longer,” says Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, in a blog post today. And then Aquila will have its next big test: flying with the “payload,” as Facebook calls the laser communication system that a team is building in Woodland Hills, CA. In July 2015, the team announced that its lasers could deliver data at tens of gigabits per second, about 10 times faster than the previous standard. And the lasers are quite precise, able to target an area the size of a dime from 10 miles away. (The lasers connect with base stations on the ground to supply internet access.) Facebook says the system has performed well in independent tests.

When will a fleet of Aquila drones bring data to the world? Facebook won’t say. There are several technical challenges remaining in getting Aquila to reliably fly 90-day stretches. The team hasn’t yet implemented solar panels on the prototype — the test flight plane ran using batteries only. The team is still working out how to build batteries with a density high enough to sustain lengthy missions. Then there’s the cost — Facebook says Aquila needs to be much cheaper if the world is going to deploy a fleet of them. Cox wrote in a blog posttoday.

“We need to develop more efficient on-board power and communication systems; ensure the aircraft are resilient to structural damage to reduce maintenance costs and able to stay aloft for long periods of time to keep fleet numbers low; and minimize the amount of human supervision associated with their operation.”

Aquila is also likely to face regulatory obstacles, which could rival the laws of physics in terms of the challenges they present. Facebook and Google have teamed up to work with authorities, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, to get permission for test flights and obtain access to the spectrum they need to serve data.

Facebook says it doesn’t plan to use Aquila to build its own cellular network. Instead, Zuckerberg says, it wants to license the technology — or even give it away to telecommunications companies, governments, and nonprofits. In emergency situations, he says, Facebook could direct its fleet to troubled regions to bolster internet access for hospitals and nonprofit centers.

But it remains unclear how governments will receive Facebook’s latest idea for connecting the world. The company’s efforts at diplomacy have sometimes been clumsy; Indian regulators banned Free Basics, Facebook’s effort to provide some internet services for free, on the grounds that giving the company control over the included services violates net neutrality. Bringing more people onto the internet, after all, is a way of bringing more people onto Facebook — and regulators have worried that the company’s end goal is to simply replace the open web for most users, while reaping the rewards in advertising dollars.

Zuckerberg says the company has learned from its failure in India — one he hopes is temporary. Solar-powered planes will raise additional regulatory issues, he says.

“We’ve learned a lot about how we need to interact with governments and the political system and regulators, and build support in order to have these things work. And I think we’ll take those lessons forward. But when I meet world leaders, a lot folks are really excited about this, because you want your people to be online, and you want more opportunities. And connectivity is one of the biggest ways that people get access to opportunities.”

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The path forward for Aquila isn’t totally clear, and it’s bound to encounter more bumps along the way. But Zuckerberg is resolute: billions of people who can’t access the internet deserve it. And for Facebook to achieve his long-term vision, everyone is going to need access to more bandwidth than they have today. A single test flight represents a tiny step toward getting there. But it also gives Facebook a dramatic success to rally around.

Zuckerberg says.

“I think the future is going to be thousands of solar-powered planes on the outskirts of cities and places where people live, and that’s gonna make connectivity both available and cheaper. And, I think, can help play an important role in closing this gap of getting more than a billion people online. This is an early milestone, but it’s a big one.”

Zuckerberg smiled and said.

“It’s not something you necessarily expect Facebook to do — because we’re not an aerospace company. But I guess we’re becoming one.”

COMMENTARY: Zuck's strategy to fly internet drones over poverty stricken geographical areas, like those in Africa, where the internet penetration is only 9.8%, or the cost of WIFI connectivity is prohibitably high, is really a ploy to get more Facebook users. At its core, it sounds like a noble and philanthropic mission of helping those in need, but it is solely about getting more eyeballs to connect through Facebook and sell them things through online ads. If Zuck really wanted to help needy African's he should take some of those billions he has and give it to charitable organizations which are fighting to eradicate hunger, AIDS, Ebola, malaria and other diseases.

07/11/2016

Digitally savvy consumers know there’s an abundance of choices when it comes to purchases. With high expectations, most will seek out appealing items with little regard to brand loyalty. Churn and attrition are at an all-time high.

The response for organizations sounds simple enough: Provide a consistently good, engaging customer experience, optimize it on a variety of devices and deliver it when customers want it. Why has it been so hard for organizations to do this?

The answer starts with the way companies operate on the back end. With multiple organizational silos, no online/offline data synthesis, rigid customer databases and other inflexible legacy systems, organizations only have a piecemeal view of the customer. It’s hard to take advantage of all the existing corporate customer data that’s available, much less the rich variety of external data. As a result, marketing efforts are fragmented. Communications are inconsistent and ineffective. And revenue growth is hindered.

By taking a technological approach that synchronizes marketing processes with the customer journey across multiple channels, organizations can achieve great results – in terms of revenue, customer advocacy and loyalty. First, they need to get a panoramic view of each customer. Then they can understand and anticipate customer behavior; orchestrate the next best action across any channel; and accurately measure results to inform future actions.

SAS recommends that you connect your marketing efforts with all the relevant data from customer interactions as well as back-end operations. Then, through advanced customer and marketing analytics, you can deliver an integrated, omnichannel experience and truly compelling content. By responding to your customers on their terms – right content, right time, right device – you can keep them coming back for more and raise their value to your business.

Step 1: Synchronize Marketing Processes Based on a Comprehensive Understanding of the Customer

When marketing departments, call centers, service operations and merchandisers operate independently based on their own distinct views of the customer, both customer engagement and marketing efforts suffer.

Consider a scenario where a customer’s browsing history (showing his preferences or inferred interests) is in one database while offline point-of-sale data about the customer is in another database. If these databases are not connected, there’s a good chance you will have less relevant interactions with that customer than what the customer expects. Or you may see the “echo effect,” where you reach the customer through one channel but he responds through a different one – leaving you unsure how to attribute the response or plan your next offer.

Many organizations don’t use their existing corporate data to the fullest extent. They overlook opportunities to enrich customer data with information from service records, operations or contact centers. Many also fail to use external data sufficiently, missing chances to broaden their understanding of the customer with data from social media, open data, third-party data, etc. In an ad sales scenario, these proprietary data sets can present a unique differentiator in the marketplace and enable you to create highly targeted campaigns for your advertisers.

Improve data quality where the data resides, regardless of whether it’s in a marketing or operational system. SAS profiles, standardizes, monitors and verifies data without moving it, which creates significantly faster, more secure processes. So you can speed up many marketing processes to run in real time and near-real time instead of weeks and months.

Access the data you need, no matter where it’s stored – from legacy systems to Hadoop. You can create data management rules once and reuse them, for a standard, repeatable method of improving and integrating data – without additional costs.

Be confident that your data is reliable and ready to use for analytics, whether you’re doing segmentation, content recommendations, next best offer, retention or lifetime value scores.

Create a panoramic view of the subscriber that connects all touch points, contact history and online/offline interactions.

Step 2: Understand Customer Behavior and Fuel Content Engagement

Content is core to enticing and keeping consumers. You can attract the right customers by optimizing your content. But it’s just as important to optimize the customer’s overall experience. Using advanced techniques like text and predictive analytics, you can improve search engine optimization (SEO) for digital content, quickly categorizing content and text mining words, phrases and topics for customers.

Beyond SEO, you can profile and segment customers based on their historical behavior, profitability and lifetime value. Through a range of predictive analytic models, including affinity analysis, response modeling and churn analysis, you’ll know whether it’s a good move to combine digital and print subscriptions. You’ll recognize which content merits a fee versus which content you can monetize without a paywall.

Through advanced analytics, you can use these models to predict behavior and:

Identify how different customer segments are most likely to respond to specific content, campaigns or marketing actions. Your approach will be based on analytically driven, granular segmentation of both known and unknown customers.

Reach the target population that’s most likely to respond positively to certain content, campaigns and other marketing activities. With predictive modeling, you can understand and predict the behavior of each targeted group.

Improve economic outcomes using optimization to make the most of each individual customer communication. Take into account resource and budget constraints, contact policies, the likelihood of customers responding, and more.

Use SAS to orchestrate data-driven marketing activities across all of your channels. So you’ll be able to present customers with the best, most profitable offers to keep them engaged or to win them back from competitors. Analyze – in real time – how people get to your site and what they do while there. Then present them with engaging content at precisely the right moment. Use SAS to:

Build an omnichannel marketing environment so you can align outbound and inbound marketing tactics across all channels.

Know the next best action to take for each customer by incorporating analytics into your marketing execution efforts.

Track the effectiveness of all marketing activities and monitor campaign results in real time.

Reduce your reliance on IT for campaign creation and deployment with an easy-to-use interface.

With a complete view of the customer, a deep understanding of behavior and automated engagement efforts, you’ll be able to make decisions that resonate for customers and invigorate your marketing efforts. For example, if you know a customer checks email every Friday, you’ll send her an email on Friday – because you’ll know that’s the best way to reach her. You’ll also be able to decipher between premium content versus content that should be free. You’ll know what will hook your customers, whether they’re using your services for the second time or the hundredth time.

Today’s customers demand value and expect a consistent experience regardless of the channel or device they’re using. SAS positions you to meet these ultra-high customer expectations at every touch point.

It’s hard to understate the importance of accurate, useful measurement. Combining SAS Reporting capabilities with SAS Visual Analytics – a visualization and exploration suite built to handle big data – it’s easy to examine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and tactics based on your budget and success metrics. Use response attribution modeling to understand the customer’s conversion path, and to know where to assign marketing credit. Then you can create future marketing mix optimization models, test/control strategies, predictive models and marketing campaigns.

With adaptive, agile marketing, you can test your offers and content quickly, on a small scale, and nurture continually richer customer interactions. Then get rapid feedback to show you when and how to modify the customer’s experience to get the most impact. Plus, you’ll have easy access to campaign reports and dashboards so you can track and manage campaigns across all of your channels.

A New Definition of Data-Driven Marketing

What is data-driven marketing, how can event marketers effectively use it to drive conversions, and why does it matter? For decades marketers were forced to launch campaigns while blindly relying on gut instinct and hoping for the best. That all changed with the digitization of business and an increasingly demanding and digitally connected consumer. Now more than ever, there is a greater urgency to develop data-driven marketing campaigns as organizations have come under increasing pressure to deliver results or ROI for their marketing spend. To be successful in this landscape, a modern marketing campaign must integrate a range of intelligent approaches to identify customers, segment, measure results, analyze data and build upon feedback in real time.

While almost every area in marketing has been folded into the digital marketing ecosystem, in-person events have remained elusive to today’s modern marketer. In fact, when it comes to tracking your marketing efforts and determining which channels provide the best return on investment (ROI), most marketers will agree that results from in-person events are still difficult to track:

69% of marketers say that tracking ROI for events is their primary challenge. (Aberdeen Group)

Only 48% of marketers report having any event ROI metric in place (Regalix)

82% of marketers cannot quantify the data received from attendee interactions at their corporate events (Kissmetrics)

Indeed, events often lag behind other marketing methods by a significant gap, with the success or failure of many events based solely on anecdotal evidence instead of quantitative measurement and logic.

Furthermore, because data-driven marketing produces highly personalized, engagement-focused campaigns for everything from enterprise servers to event apps, consumers are now beginning to expect a high level of personalization with each transaction.

What is data-driven marketing?

Let’s start out by trying to develop a simple definition for a relatively complex concept and practice. Data-driven marketing captures insights and data from a prospect, analyzes and scores the prospect’s data and behavior, and then subsequently triggers marketing actions and campaigns based upon marketing analysis. An appropriate analogy is to think of data-driven marketing from the consumer side in the average online shopping experience. When you purchase an item online, data-driven marketing strategies provide recommendations of complementary products to provide a better overall experience. If you’re looking at airfare rates for your next vacation to Hawaii, a data-driven marketing approach will focus on restaurants around the island with cuisine you regularly Google, potential places to stay based on positive reviews on Facebook, visitor’s guides that reflect your online budget-hunting practices and local activities such as scuba diving, listed on your LinkedIn profile.

By comparison, when you look at data-driven marketing from the marketer’s side, you’ll find a much more complex process. As you are able to obtain and update information on the customer from secondary sources, such as social media sites and web search data, you can create an approach that is customized to their buying behavior, interests, past purchases, web searches, social media posts and similar information. In other words, this approach allows you to optimize your funnel and customize your buyer journey to that particular prospect’s needs. You can also survey prospects to obtain primary sources of data, but be aware that there is often a bias between what individuals or groups claim versus their actual behavior. For example, an event attendee who was ranting about poor service at the luncheon one day may be raving about the closing keynote, leaving you with plenty of praise on the keynote but failing to mention the luncheon on the exit survey. Once you’ve obtained the data you need to make a comprehensive group, you can divide your prospects up into the personas they fit into best. This allows you to customize and personalize your approach, timing, channel and subject matter to optimize the results for each persona group.

The problem many marketers run into at in-person events is that they often don’t have the information they need to determine how to best engage each prospect. The closest option currently available are scans that provide contact information and basic registration information. But scans don’t provide the data you need to track that prospect’s engagement before, during, and after the event to prove the event ROI that particular group of prospects has generated for your company. As an example, at a recent conference, my badge was scanned by a gentleman from a company that prints promotional items. I was looking through the items in his booth to determine if there was anything I could use for our company’s next event. Though the exhibitor could have collected further data from me at the time, it would have been at the cost of other prospects that he could not help while gathering my information. When I returned home from the event, I had several recommendations for items that didn’t meet our needs because the minimum quantity was much too high, the quality wasn’t good enough and the prices were too expensive. The company had my contact information, but didn’t know enough about me or my organization to make appropriate recommendations. A data-driven marketing approach to this in-person event would have drastically improved my experience while increasing the marketer’s Event ROI.

How does data-driven marketing improve your ROI?

If you’re still wondering how data-driven marketing can make a difference to your company, you’re not alone. Though there was a 14% increase in confidence in putting big data to work in marketing departments from 2013 to 2014, with expectations for additional growth, many marketers still don’t know how the additional data provides a solid improvement in ROI or how to use the data to their company’s best advantage. In fact, companies that have implemented data-driven marketing into their marketing toolbox and recorded the results have often seen a 10-20% improvement on their ROI. Like any tool, it must be used correctly and implemented with other tools in your kit, such as using social media data, search analytics, SEO, content targeting and developing better buyer personas.

Why does data-driven marketing make such a big difference? Using the marketing convention example above, if the company had used data-driven marketing techniques to track my information, they would have known my organization was operating on a modest budget. All these factors made their special offer on a tri-fold brochure with a minimum order of 5,000 a very bad fit. Instead of learning more about the client, the company made a suggestion based on what was popular with their clients in general, few of whom had the needs of our organization, and lost a prospective sale. A targeted campaign based on data-driven marketing would have recommended a small-minimum product order that was inexpensive, while offering additional items that would have fit well with our company’s mission.

Click Image To Enlarge

Courtesy of an article titled "How a Data-Driven Approach Can Engage Customers and Boost Marketing Returns" appearing in SAS blog and an article dated May 26, 2016 appearing in Certain

07/07/2016

Founded in 1998, Lululemon is a yoga and sports apparel company from Canada.

Although its first store was opened in 2000, the company sold $350 million worth of products in their 113 retail stores 8 years later.

In 2012, Lululemon was reported to have the third most productive retail stores in the US, only behind Apple and Tiffany & Co..

According to Nina Gardner, Lululemon’s community relations manager, the company achieved all this almost entirely via word-of-mouth, and with ads in only two publications:

We don’t do ads. All of our marketing is done word-of-mouth and grassroots Gardner said. The only place you’ll see ads is in ‘Yoga Journal’ and ‘Runner’s World,’ two national publications.

Let’s take a look at how a company that started off selling yoga pants managed to grow so big from leveraging on word-of-mouth:

1. Lululemon’s customers are eager to show off their inspirational-poster themed shopping bags, just as they might on Pinterest.

Lululemon is all about living an active life, evidenced by their goal to “sweat every day”, and other activities like breathing deeply, drinking plenty of water and going outdoors.

These values promote a very positive and healthy image, something that customers can relate to and aspire towards. And customers who shop at Lululemon are given tote bags that have the company’s manifesto emblazoned all over them:

Word-of-mouth action tip: Make something about your product worth showing off to others.

2. Lululemon staff feel more like your yoga or gym buddies – they’ll happily talk to you more about yoga and goal-setting than their products.

Lululemon store staffers wear yoga pants so they feel more like yoga or gym buddies (Click Image To Enlarge)

Lululemon’s store employees “are encouraged to discuss exercise goals with customers and take into account their feedback written on chalkboards in the fitting rooms.” This ensures the staff are better equipped with more information to give personalized recommendations to every customer.

They are also instructed to dress like they were going for a workout, so customers would see them more as people you see in a gym or yoga class, rather than a store employee.

Plus, most people who work at Lululemon are athletic and fit individuals, so they have a lot in common with their customers. This relatibility and similarity makes them a lot more likeable, and customers are more comfortable trusting them.

And this building of relationships is exactly what Nina Gardner is trying to achieve:

"Making sure we’re really building those relationships (with customers) — that’s what really sets us apart from being just another retail store that’s opening up to sell clothes. Absolutely we sell clothes, but we are building relationships. We are supporting communities.”

Word-of-mouth action tip: Don’t rush into selling your products – connect with your customers like a friend, so they’ll like you more, and open up to you.

3. Retail stores transform into fitness and conversation hubs on weekends for free lessons, to give back and get people involved with the brand.

One of Lululemon's in-store yoga classes (Click Image To Enlarge)

For one of their stores in Burlingame, California hosts free yoga classes on Saturday mornings and Sundays, as well as a weekday run club. This practice originated from Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, who used his office space as a yoga studio at night to help pay for rent back in the day.

This, according to former CEO Christine Day, positions Lululemon stores as a “fitness and conversation hub”. It also increases customer engagement, encourages regular visits to the store, and keeps the brand constantlytop-of-mind.

What having similar-minded individuals for store employees and free fitness classes in-store does is – it evolves customers’ perception of the brand from being an apparel company to an entity that embodies your ideals, and a community to find like-minded people.

"They’re selling a brand identity…the model that Lululemon is trying to build is, you’re pretty cool, we’ll be your partner in being your best possible self. And that kind of turns retail on its head."

4. Lululemon engages fitness trainers and athletes as brand Ambassadors to inspire and engage with their customers, so they can feel motivated to keep fit.

Nicole Katz from Yoga 216 is one of the many brand ambassadors of Lululemon (Click Image To Enlarge)

So if Lululemon organizes free yoga and fitness classes regularly all throughout the world, who exactly leads all those classes?

They are Lululemon’s brand ambassadors; yoga teachers and fitness trainers that have chosen embody the brand’s values and lifestyle.

These 1,500+ ambassadors host classes in Lululemon stores within their communities, and according to a yoga teacherfrom Australian fitness group OzSquad, get support from the brand to pursue any events and initiatives they desire.

Of course, they’re also outfitted with the Lululemon products, so they get to wear free gear while promoting their own yoga schools and the Lululemon brand.

Apart from local yogis and fitness trainers, world-class Olympic athletes are also part of the ambassador program, such as Olympic cross-country skier Sara Renner and Jaime Komer.

Word-of-mouth action tip: Celebrate and promote individuals who embody your brand values, so customers will think of you when they look at them.

Lululemon has always been a brand that connects their products with values that inspire their customers. People buy Lululemon pants because they agree with the values that Lululemon embodies and expresses.

And that can be a powerful thing, as branding expert and author Karen Postexplains,

"They’re selling emotion and happiness and joy and feeling good about yourself, … and when companies keep their eye on that in a more focused way, and less on the features of the product, their chances of being a successful brand just go through the roof."

Questions to ponder:

What are some values that your target customers live by?

Does your company embody and communicate those same values in your marketing?

How can you create a positive and engaging community, where your customers can interact with your brand?

COMMENTARY: Based in Vancouver BC, lululemon is known for their athletic apparel, including clothing for yoga, running and any other “sweaty pursuits.” Customers can not only buy clothing and merchandise but they can also sign up for in-store events ranging from workshops, runs and yoga classes, offered on a weekly basis and tailored to the local surroundings. To personalize the in-store experience, lululemon educators and community ambassadors can be found in every store to talk to customers about healthy living, yoga, exercise etc. The ambassadors program is composed of individuals who adhere to the same lifestyle and cultural ideals oflululemon, and can share their expertise with the local community.

Lululemon Athletica retail stores have taken the store and shopping experience to a new level. Julia Brunzell, Manager of Store Design at lululemon atheletica discusses the unique in-store experience that the brand provides.

“We are constantly listening to feedback about how guests experience our stores and how they function for our educators. Every store designer works in the stores to experience firsthand how the space is used, what works best for flow, product visibility and efficiency. In addition, we want every store to feel like a part of its community from the first day it opens; we invite our guests to hang out, chat with our educators and learn about local yoga/fitness studios. Every week, our stores push aside their product fixtures and open the store up to the community for a complimentary yoga class.

Our stores are designed to be conversation starters, while also being fundamentally warm, inviting, eclectic and accessible to everyone. Over the years our fixtures have become more streamlined, modern and modular which allows for flexibility and creativity with visual displays. We are known for our unique, creative and locally relevant storefront designs which range from making a big design statement to a fun reflection of the community we are joining. For example, our Burlington, VT location is a strong ski community so we used two gondolas as benches outside to create an eye-catching and locally relevant storefront. At our Houston Galleria mall location, we designed our storefront using glass windows that look like those from a space shuttle, a nod to the nearby Houston Space Centre.”

There have also been many changes within the lululemon brand. Recently, the brand has launched a new fast fashion clothing line, &Go. With apparel ranging from dresses to pants and tank tops, the line is set to be offered online and storewide. With this change comes another in the men’s clothing division. Lululemon is set to open a standalone men’s store by 2016. The brand offers a range of men’s clothing on its website, including jackets, hoodies, pants, socks and underwear. Finally, with lululemon’s latest expansion into the European market, it will be interesting to see how these developments continue to affect the stores and brands initiatives worldwide.

When Julie Brunzell was asked how these changes and expansions affect the store design concepts and whether consumers will begin to see larger stores, pop up shops etc. to showcase the new clothing lines, she said.

“As a company focused on innovation, we are always evaluating how we design our stores and with that comes continuous examination of layout principles, space planning, size and location. We aim to create community and shopping experiences that speak to our guests and settings which vary from city to city. Entrepreneurship is one of our core business values and as a business that is grounded in community, we enable and support store managers to have a hand in creating spaces that resonate with their guests and their community.”

Lululemon Store Of The Future

Lululemon just opened a new flagship store in New York City's Flatiron District. At 11,500 square feet, it's the brand's largest flagship location. Its Union Square location closed its doors.

The Flatiron District is home to many other stores that specialize in athleisure — Sweaty Betty and Athleta, to name a few. But that makes sense: The area has many of the most popular boutique fitness studios — Flywheel Sports, Exhale, SLT, Pure Barre, and two SoulCycle studios that are mere blocks apart.

And Lululemon is capitalizing on that. One of the new store's features, The Concierge, will dedicate floor space to helping shoppers beyond the sales floor.

The Concierge at Lululemon's Flatiron District store in Manhattan (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Concierge will recommend nearby classes and locations, so that the exercise-obsessed shoppers can don their new pants in class. To top that off, shoppers can book classes while they're shopping.

The Concierge will be a hangout spot — there will be a "community board" to help shoppers discover new places to run, new classes, and even new places to eat.

The Community Center located inside Lululemon's flagship store in the Flatiron District of Manhattan (Click Image To Enlarge)

Lululemon will make shopping a luxurious experience, with a coat check, water, a coffee bar, snacks, and a phone-charging station. You can also have your purchases delivered to your home, office, or hotel, so no need for lugging big Lululemon bags around during the day.

The company is focusing on expanding its already-strong community with a new space called Hub Seventeen. Hub Seventeen will be above the store's retail floor.

Carla Anderson, Lululemon's general manager of US retail, said in emailed comments.

"Our stores are inspired by community, from the design aesthetic and in-store guest experiences and classes to our ambassador and studio partnerships."

Chairs hang from the ceiling inside the Community Events Center of Lululemon's flagship store in the Flatiron District of Manhattan (Click Image To Enlarge)

The 5,000-square-foot space will be used for fitness classes, monthly dinners, concerts, art shows, and more.

Lululemon's stores already have yoga classes, but Hub 17 will take it up a notch.

Anderson said.

"While all of our stores offer in-store yoga and fitness class and events, Hub Seventeen is the first time we created a dedicated community space separate from the retail experience."

The Community Events Center inside Lululemon's flagship Flatiron District store includes an area for yoga exercise demonstrations (Click Image To Enlarge)